Afshar, Cyrus. 2021. "Bolsa Família: past and future of the Brazilian cash-grant programme." WIEGO Social Protection Briefing Note No. 3. Available at https://www.wiego.org/publications/social-protection-informal-workers-trends-and-changes-social-protection-briefing-note
In this brief, we discuss the changes in Bolsa Família, the Brazilian cash-grant flagship programme, in light of the recent developments in social assistance stemming from the fallout of the COVID-19 crisis. The government has terminated the 18-year-old programme and replaced it with a new conditional transfer policy, Auxílio Brasil. The brief discusses the main problems of this new policy and the alternative paths that could have been followed to improve Bolsa Família in order to include informal workers.